I want to start this up again, but tracking time on Twitter is too annoying; I’d rather just cut it out except for particular times of day. The new criteria for this list is anything I read where I make it to the end.

Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Create App Content

When the news first broke on reddit I tried and failed for 15 minutes to verify the claims that Duolingo had laid off “most of their translators”. The only primary source was a translator saying they were on a team of 4 translators that had been reduced to 2. I’m surprised that such a beloved brand was scorned so harshly so immediately by people on twitter / reddit.

Also very interested to see Duolingo’s internal tools for translation QA, since I built Down Dog’s translation QA tools.

Sweaty January and how gyms make money

Roughly 18% of yearly memberships to Down Dog start in January, which is a lot but far from the author’s claim of 75% of new gym memberships starting in January. There’s no citation, but I’m curious if online fitness has a less pronounced spike than in person because it’s easier to get started from home. But a good write up of the slightly perverse incentives for gyms.

An app can be a home cooked meal

Love this piece, I want all my Computer Science classmates turned professional software engineers to read it. Here are some homecooked software projects I’ve worked on this year:

  • My custom built Tiller HQ budget spreadsheet. Built from scratch, takes me ~2 hours per year to categorize / set up rules, and gives me an easy yearly overview. Also helps keep track of total charitable contribution, which is useful for taxes.
  • A rebalancing program; given a list of stock tickers, prices, target allocations, and current allocations, output the number of shares to buy for each asset to reach target allocation. Works great for me since I tend to do lump sum investing rather than DCA.

I have more home cooked software project ideas, for when I’m less busy with Down Dog, might write about those soon.

The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents - and What They Mean for America’s Future

Originally inspired to read this because I straddle the Millenial - Gen Z divide, and am dating a Gen Z woman. I’m also curious about the trends for even younger generations, which might be relevant when I start a family. Many startling stats, might do a separate post about those.